Fears Grow that EU Membership Would Equate to a Sell-Out of National Interests

For fear of losing national sovereignty, Turks are increasingly critical of the country's possible accession to the EU; Euro-sceptics are warning of a sell-out of national interests. Susanne Güsten reports from Istanbul

Opinion polls regularly tell us that three out of four Turks are in favour of their country joining the EU. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that a wave of Euro-enthusiasm is washing over the Bosporus. The reason being that for Turkey, Europe is no longer a distant dream; it is already a reality with drawbacks: the Turks are becoming aware that in years to come Brussels is going to make increasing demands on Ankara and will have a stronger hand in the running of the country.

Many see this as a threat to the Turkish nation-state. The swelling ranks of the Euro-sceptics mistrust the Europeans and are warning of a sell-out of national interests.

The nation-state as the greatest good

These warnings are also being voiced in other countries that are seeking EU membership; but nowhere do they touch the nerve of the way a nation sees itself as they do in Turkey. While the EU – as a result of its experiences in the two World Wars – is trying to drive back the nation-state by bringing the Member States closer together, many Turks consider the nation-state to be the greatest good.

"Sovereignty belongs unconditionally and unreservedly to the nation" was one of the principles of Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish state, whose image hangs on the end wall of the plenary chamber in the Turkish parliament.

Turkey arose out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, which were occupied by the Allied victors of World War I, in the 1920s. In a war that involved heavy losses, Atatürk succeeded in driving the Greek occupying powers in West Anatolia in particular out of the country.

The experience of fearing that the country would be carved up and become a plaything of foreign powers was one of the traumas of the early years of the Turkish Republic.

The role of the Cyprus conflict

It is therefore no surprise that the nationalists are claiming that Turkish membership of the European Union would ultimately only benefit the Europeans, but not the Turks. And, they claim, there is concrete evidence of this in the Cyprus conflict.

Turkey's Euro-sceptics pounce on every little step taken by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hints that he is willing to make compromises in the search for a peaceful solution for the divided Mediterranean island.

The fact that Erdogan's government is "selling" Cyprus in order to show the EU what an obedient little child it is, is an image often peddled by the right-wing nationalist MHP party.

EU opposition of the social democrats

But the concern about the fate of the Turkish state in the upcoming membership negotiations with the EU is not only an issue for Turkey's right wing. Drawing attention to supposed threats to Turkey from outside its national borders is also part of the repertoire of the social democratic opposition party CHP.

The CHP recently went to the Constitutional Court to block a law governing the sale of land and buildings to foreigners – and it succeeded. The CHP is part of Turkey's lay Kemalist establishment that considers all deviations from Atatürk's course to be potential high treason.

The Kemalists consider Atatürk's life-work to be an inviolable national treasure, which is why they have terrible difficulty accepting some of the European Union's key demands. They even have trouble opening Turkey up to foreign investors – a fact demonstrated by more than just the fate of the real estate law.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a leading Kemalist, recently vetoed a law that would have allowed foreigners to buy television stations in Turkey. The president explained that he had taken this action, because a law of this sort would not have been in the "national interest".

Policies on minorities – a sensitive issue

If ground-breaking economic policies such as this are viewed with such suspicion, it is no wonder that the resistance to more sensitive issues, such as policies on minorities, is even more fierce.

The alleged attempts of young Kurds to burn a Turkish flag triggered nationalist hysteria across the country over the past few weeks. Tens of thousands demonstratively draped their homes with Turkish flags while the Turkish police marched through Istanbul bearing a 1.5-kilometre long flag.

More freedom for Islam through EU membership?

But the nationalists and Kemalists are being joined by a growing number of Turkish Islamists who are also sceptical about their native land's application to join the EU. Over the past few years, Turkey's religious population has accounted for some of the country's greatest Europhiles because they hoped that moving closer to the EU would bring more freedom for Islam.

But the introduction of headscarf bans in several EU Member States and other similar developments have dashed these hopes. A recent report published by the Independent Industrialist & Businessmen's Association, MÜSIAD, concluded that the basic values on which the EU is built are a "strait-jacket" for Muslims.

Even though Erdogan's government has more than a two-third's majority in parliament, it feels that the mistrust of the EU must be taken seriously. The nationalist and Islamist wing of the ruling AKP ensures that Euro-scepticism is not being restricted to the opposition both inside and outside the parliament. The debate as to what other demands the EU is yet to make on Turkey and how the country should react to these demands is really only likely to get going in earnest when accession negotiations get underway on 3 October.

Translation from German: Aingeal Flanagan

Qantara.de

Dossier
Turkey and Europe
Discussions about Turkey's EU candidacy tend to be heated and even emotional at times. Are questions of cultural identity more important than political and economic criteria? And what role does Islam play concerning Turkey's integration into Europe?